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anyway!

I have adjusted the
font size used at this site to ensure that even those with impaired
vision can read what I have to say. However, if the text is still either too
big or too small for you, please adjust your browser settings!

As is the case with all my Essays, nothing here should be read as an attack
either on Historical Materialism [HM] -- a theory I fully accept --, or,
indeed,
on revolutionary socialism. I remain as committed to the self-emancipation of the
working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary
nearly thirty years ago.

The
difference between Dialectical Materialism [DM] and HM, as I see it, is explained
here.

Our old friend,
Mr G,
has one again shown that possession of a brain doesn't always guarantee
its owner knows what to do with it -- in this case, other than how to make a fool of himself in
public. In this alone, Mr G is without peer on the UK-Left. Were this an Olympic
event, he'd win Gold every time.

Mr G's Passport Photo

In an attempt to
intervene in a discussion over at Splintered Sunrise, I asked the following
question:

Can anyone
explain why Andy Newman has turned into a Stalinist, and is deleting my posts at
his blog?

Sad though this
is, the above report and comments read like a far left version of Groundhog
Day: we've seen this sort of thing so many times, and not just in the UK,
and not just when the working class is retreating or is quiescent.
Wherever the revolutionary left organises we witness the same problems:
complaints of lies, slander, bullying, bureaucratic and anti-democratic CCs,
etc., etc. Are we just unlucky, or is there a deeper reason?

I have tried to explain why this happens and will continue to happen, and what
we can do about it, here:

[I have to say this
was probably because I wiped the floor with
him last year, and he surely wants to avoid more of the same. Of course, readers
can judge that for themselves: here and
here.]

In fact, comments
like this are regularly deleted on other boards and blogs. Either that, or I am
bad-mouthed for even so much as thinking to blame DM partially for
such debacles.

However, the UK Left's
very own Resident Fool, Mr G, then chirped in:

Rosa it might
well be because you are seeking to explain every argument with reference to the
absence or presence of illusions in the dialectic. Occassionally (sic) people get a
bit annoyed about this. Whilst I do indeed have my differences with Andy viz.
the joys of nudist beaches in the DDR, I don't actually believe that not wanting
yet another argument about the world historical significance of dialectic or its
absence, is NECCESSARILY (sic) an indication of Stalinism (complete or otherwise).

To which I responded:

Well, this
comment could only have been made by someone who has read my essays or posts
with his eyes no longer in their sockets, for I explicitly say, over and over,
that this is precisely what I do not do.

May I suggest
therefore, Mr G, that you abandon the tactic you have so far adopted -- that of
passing comment on my ideas from a position of almost total ignorance -- and
either desist from sharing such worthless opinions with the good folks here, or
that you at least attempt to inform yourself of my ideas before you expose your
ignorance so publicly yet again?

Just a final
thought: six years ago, before the disaster of Respect and the Left
List, I predicted (at
Lenin's Tomb) that you mystics could look
forward to another 150 years of almost total failure unless you learnt the
lessons of the past. The last six years of foul-ups suggest that you lot are
quite intent on proving me right.

Mr G, back to his old
tricks (i.e., ignoring what anyone says, and going off at a tangent), somehow
managed to type this in reply:

As I said Rosa,
no-one is interested in either what you do or what you do not do, although I
note with some amusement that you think that there cannot be any contradiction
between what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing. That there
can be is demonstrated by the fact that you think you are demolishing a mystical
theory of politics when you are in fact creating a new one (and how grand it all
is: stretching right back to the pre-socratics!). We're just not interested
Rosa.

To which I responded:

Where did I say
this, or even imply, it:

although I
note with some amusement that you think that there cannot be any contradiction
between what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing...?

Given the fact
that you have an impressively insecure grasp of logic, both formal and informal,
and an equally tenuous grasp of your own 'theory', I think we can take anything
you have to say on this topic with a pinch of non-dialectical salt.

That there
can be is demonstrated by the fact that you think you are demolishing a mystical
theory of politics when you are in fact creating a new one (and how grand it all
is: stretching right back to the pre-Socratics!).

And why is this
a contradiction?

[I do not
expect an answer to this, since, as I said, you do not even understand your
own 'theory', still less my thesis.]

However, it's
less than amusing that you are happy to see our movement experience another
round of defeats, splits and failures while you keep your head well-and-truly in
the sand.

As I said
Rosa, no-one is interested in either what you do or what you do not do....

1) In fact, you
did not say this.

2)
Unfortunately for you, plenty of comrades are interested in my ideas -- that is,
those who actually care to build a successful movement, unlike you.

See you again
in 6 years after another round of dialectically-inspired screw-upsÖ

[Notice below that, as
predicted, Mr G failed to tell us why the example given below is a 'contradiction'.]

Mr G has now flipped
out, and responded (with yet more irrelevances):

Let's imagine
that I have gangrene. A pretty serious problem I'm sure you'd agree. I am
engaged in a discussion with some people who think what I need is a course of
antibiotics and others who believe an immediate amputation of a couple of limbs
is necessary. At this point someone called Rosa appears who has for the last
couple of years been working on a theses suggesting that gangrene is caused by
philosophically faulty ideas about the dialectic. I tell her that Iím not at all
interested in her theses as it seems completely irrelevant. I am denounced for
my ignorance and steered to a site which consists of endless repetitive
pre-ambles explaining the importance of rejecting the dialectic in order to
avoid an endless history of amputations, but which never ever arrives at the
point of the argument. As the pain in my limbs grows worse I scream 'go away
Rosa!'. Rosa triumphantly declares that I seem 'content to suffer'.

Has Rosa here
made a logical error or is the problem simply one of extension? [Spelling
corrected.]

Now, because I do not
wish to presume on the hospitality of the owner of Splintered Sunrise, I have
decided to post my reply to Mr G here, not there.

Mr G, happy to lie
his face off, alleges the following:

At this point
someone called Rosa appears who has for the last couple of years been working on
a theses suggesting that gangrene is caused by philosophically faulty ideas
about the dialectic.

But he knows full
well, since I have told him many times (and again above) that I have
never argued this, or anything like it, but, dissembler that he is, he prefers
to lie yet again.

In the past, he has
even been shown this disclaimer from page one of my site (and repeated many times in
my Essays):

It is important to
emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the
long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism solely on the acceptance of
the
Hermetic ideas dialecticians
inheritedfrom Hegel.

It is worth repeating this since I still
encounter comments on Internet discussion boards, and still receive e-mails from
those who claim to have read the above words, who still think I am blaming all
our woes on dialectics.

I am not.

However, no matter how many times I
repeat this caveat, the message will not sink in (and this is after several years of
continually making this
very point!).

It seems that this is one part of the
universe over which the
Heraclitean Flux
has no power!

What
is being claimed,
however, is that
adherence to this 'theory' is one
of the subjective reasonswhy
Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet,
but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this
'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has
been an important contributoryfactor.

The
larger the proletariat, the smaller the impact that Dialectical Marxism has on it.

Sadly, this will continue while comrades cling on to this regressive doctrine.

Any who doubt this are encouraged to read on, where those
doubts will be severely bruised, if not completely laid to
rest.

Alas, Mr G's skull is
so thick, that a diamond-tipped drill would struggle to penetrate far, so I
stand no chance. We can, therefore, look forward to more fibs like this in the
years to come.

A far better
analogy would in fact be the following:

Mr G has a bad case of gangrene.
Unfortunately, this was caused by shooting himself in the foot. However, because
he is a
Christian Scientist, in the grip of a
bizarre set of mystical nostrums (to the effect that disease is just the "error of
mortal mind"), he refused treatment from those not similarly befuddled by
such odd ideas -- i.e., doctors, scientifically trained to help him, should he
want it. But, he told them "I'm not interested". So his wound wasn't treated and began to
fester.

Well-disposed individuals attempted to
inform him of the error of his ways, but he just responded with: "I'm not
interested", which he constantly repeats. Alas, he deteriorated, and was warned that
he stands to lose his leg to gangrene if he persists in his rejection of help.
He was also told that his ideas are aggravating a problem caused by other factors,
but he retorted:

"You are all idiots; you expect me
to believe that gangrene is caused by my ideas?"

Even though those
around him told him that this wasn't what they were saying, and even though he is visibly
deteriorating, all that they get from him is: "I'm not interested".

The predicted results unfolded,
Mr Gangrene lost his leg, and then 6 weeks later he died of complications. On his
grave were inscribed these poignant words:

Here Lies Mr G -- Killed By
His Own
Stupidity

Exhibit A for the
prosecution:

I am denounced
for my ignorance and steered to a site which consists of endless repetitive
pre-ambles explaining the importance of rejecting the dialectic in order to
avoid an endless history of amputations, but which never ever arrives at the
point of the argument. As the pain in my limbs grows worse I scream 'go away
Rosa!'. Rosa triumphantly declares that I seem 'content to suffer'.

But, Mr G does not
and cannot know this; he has not visited my site to read the Essay in question, for if
he had, he would have seen how far from the truth these gangrene-induced
ramblings
of his
are.

Hence, Mr Gangrene is content to
ram his head back in the sand as our movement staggers from
crisis to crisis, oblivious of its cause: the fact the our side shoots itself in
the foot all the time.

[Added on edit: Mr G has now left the UK-SWP, and seems
to have dropped out of sight. Yet another example of successful 'dialectical'
practice, one may wonder? Even so, I suspect he is still "Not interested".]

So, he is "not
interested" in why this happens, content to labour under the delusion that I claim
it is all the fault of dialectics, when this isn't so. DM, like the
mystical ideas I mentioned above, only makes a bad situation worse. The
aforementioned
Essay explains how and why we repeatedly damage ourselves, and how dialectics
merely compounds these self-inflicted wounds.

Finally:

Has Rosa here
made a logical error or is the problem simply one of extension?

As we can now see,
the fault lies in Mr G's incapacity to stop lying, aggravated by a neurotic
propensity to project his own faults onto others.

So, yes, he has
condemned himself to suffer, since he is "not interested".

We can, at least,
console ourselves with the thought that Mr G is at least a consistentfool.